The Romance of the Forest, Ann Radcliffe [reader novel txt] 📗

“Is there a heart that music cannot melt?

Alas! how is that rugged heart forlorn!

Is there who ne’er the mystic transports felt

Of solitude and melancholy born?

He need not woo the Muse Ñ he is her scorn.”

Beattie.

Towards evening the captain, to avoid the danger of encountering a Barbary corsair, steered for the French coast, and Adeline distinguished in the gleam of the setting sun the shores of Provence, feathered with wood and green with pasturage. La Luc, languid and ill, had retired to the cabin, whither Clara attended him. The pilot at the helm, guiding the tall vessel through the sounding waters, and one solitary sailor, leaning with crossed arms against the mast, and now and then singing parts of a mournful ditty, were all of the crew, except Adeline, that remained upon deck Ñ and Adeline silently watched the declining sun, which threw a saffron glow upon the waves, and on the sails, gently swelling in the breeze that was now dying away. The sun, at length, sunk below the ocean, and twilight stole over the scene, leaving the shadowy shores yet visible, and touching with a solemn tint the waters that stretched wide around. She sketched the picture, but it was with a faint pencil.

NIGHT.

O’er the dim breast of Ocean’s wave

Night spreads afar her gloomy wings,

And pensive thought, and silence brings,

Save when the distant waters lave;

Or when the mariner’s lone voice

Swells faintly in the passing gale,

Or when the screaming sea-gulls poise

O’er the tall mast and swelling sail,

Bounding the gray gleam of the deep,

Where fancy’d forms arouse the mind,

Dark sweep the shores, on whose rude steep

Sighs the sad spirit of the wind.

Sweet is its voice upon the air

At Ev’ning’s melancholy close,

When the smooth wave in silence flows!

Sweet, sweet the peace its stealing accents bear!

Blest be thy shades, O Night! and blest the song

Thy low winds breathe the distant shores along!

As the shadows thickened the scene sunk into deeper repose. Even the sailor’s song had ceased; no sound was heard but that of the waters dashing beneath the vessel, and their fainter murmur on the pebbly coast. Adeline’s mind was in unison with the tranquillity of the hour: lulled by the waves, she resigned herself to a still melancholy, and sat lost in reverie. The present moment brought to her recollection her voyage up the Rhone, when seeking refuge from the terrors of the Marquis de Montalt, she so anxiously endeavoured to anticipate her future destiny. She then, as now, had watched the fall of evening and the fading prospect, and she remembered what a desolate feeling had accompanied the impression which those objects made. She had then no friends Ñ no asylum Ñ no certainty of escaping the pursuit of her enemy. Now she had found affectionate friends Ñ a secure retreat

Ñ and was delivered from the terrors she then suffered Ñ but

still she was unhappy. The remembrance of Theodore Ñ of Theodore

who had loved her so truly, who had encountered and suffered so much

for her sake, and of whose fate she was now as ignorant as when she

traversed the Rhone, was an incessant pang to her heart. She seemed to

be more remote than ever from the possibility of hearing of him.

Sometimes a faint hope crossed her that he had escaped the malice of

his persecutor; but when she considered the inveteracy and power of

the latter, and the heinous light in which the law regards an assault

upon a superior officer, even this poor hope vanished, and left her to

tears and anguish, such as this reverie, which began with a sensation

of only gentle melancholy, now led to. She continued to muse till the

moon arose from the bosom of the ocean, and shed her trembling lustre

upon the waves, diffusing peace, and making silence more solemn;

beaming a soft light on the white fails, and throwing upon the waters

the tall shadow of the vessel, which now seemed to glide along

unopposed by any current. Her tears had somewhat relieved the anguish

of her mind, and she again reposed in placid melancholy, when a strain

of such tender and entrancing sweetness stole on the silence of the

hour, that it seemed more like celestial than mortal music Ñ so

soft, so soothing, it sunk upon her ear, that it recalled her from

misery to hope and love. She wept again Ñ but these were tears which

she would not have exchanged for mirth and joy. She looked round, but

perceived neither ship or boat; and as the undulating sounds swelled

on the distant air, she thought they came from the shore. Sometimes

the breeze wasted them away, and again returned them in tones of the

most languishing softness. The links of the air thus broken, it was

music rather than melody that she caught, till, the pilot gradually

steering nearer the coast, she distinguished the notes of a song

familiar to her ear. She endeavoured to recollect where she had heard

it, but in vain; yet her heart beat almost unconsciously with a

something resembling hope. Still she listened, till the breeze again

stole the sounds. With regret she now perceived that the vessel was

moving from them, and at length they trembled faintly on the waves,

sunk away at distance, and were heard no more. She remained upon the

deck a considerable time, unwilling to relinquish the expectation of

hearing them again, and their sweetness still vibrating on her fancy,

and at length retired to the cabin oppressed by a degree of

disappointment which the occasion did not appear to justify.

La Luc grew better during the voyage, his spirits revived, and when the vessel entered that part of the Mediterranean called the Gulf of Lyons, he was sufficiently animated to enjoy from the deck the noble prospect which the sweeping shores of Provence, terminating in the far distant ones of Languedoc, exhibited. Adeline and Clara, who anxiously watched his looks, rejoiced in their amendment; and the fond wishes of the latter already anticipated his perfect recovery. The expectations of Adeline had been too often checked by disappointment to permit her now to indulge an equal degree of hope with that of her friend, yet she confided much in the effect of this voyage.

La Luc amused himself at intervals with discoursing, and pointing out the situations of considerable ports on the coast, and the mouths of the rivers that, after wandering through Provence, disembogue themselves into the Mediterranean. The Rhone, however, was the only one of much consequence which he passed. On this object, though it was so distant that fancy, perhaps, rather than the sense, beheld it, Clara gazed with peculiar pleasure, for it came from the banks of Savoy; and the wave which she thought she perceived, had washed the feet of her dear native mountains. The time passed with mingled pleasure and improvement as La Luc described to his attentive pupils the manners and commerce of the different inhabitants of the coast, and the natural history of the country; or as he traced in imagination the remote wanderings of rivers to their source and delineated the characteristic beauties of their scenery.

After a pleasant voyage of a few days, the shores of Provence receded, and that of Languedoc, which had long bounded the distance, became the grand object of the scene, and the sailors drew near their port. They landed in the afternoon at a small town situated at the foot of a woody eminence, on the right overlooking the sea, and on the left the rich plains of Languedoc, gay with the purple vine. La Luc determined to defer his journey till the following day, and was directed to a small inn at the extremity of the town, where the accommodation, such as it was, he endeavoured to be contented with.

In the evening the beauty of the hour, and the desire of exploring new scenes, invited Adeline to walk. La Luc was fatigued, and did not go out, and Clara remained with him. Adeline took her way to the woods that rose from the margin of the sea, and climbed the wild eminence on which they hung. Often as she went she turned her eyes to catch between the dark foliage the blue waters of the bay, the white sail that flitted by, and the trembling gleam of the setting sun. When she reached the summit, and looked down over the dark tops of the woods on the wide and various prospect, she was seized with a kind of still rapture impossible to be expressed, and stood unconscious of the flight of time, till the sun had left the scene, and twilight threw its solemn shade upon the mountains. The sea alone reflected the fading splendor of the West; its tranquil surface was partially disturbed by the low wind that crept in tremulous lines along the waters whence rising to the woods, it shivered their light leaves, and died away. Adeline, resigning herself to the luxury of sweet and tender emotions, repeated the following lines:

SUNSET.

Soft o’er the mountain’s purple brow

Meek Twilight draws her shadows gray;

From tufted woods, and vallies low,

Light’s magic colours steal away.

Yet still, amid the spreading gloom,

Resplendent glow the western waves

That roll o’er Neptune’s coral caves,

A zone of light on Ev’ning’s dome.

On this lone summit let me rest,

And view the forms to Fancy dear,

Till on the Ocean’s darken’d breast

The stars of Ev’ning tremble clear;

Or the moon’s pale orb appear,

Throwing her line of radiance wide,

Far o’er the lightly-curling tide,

That seems the yellow sands to chide.

No sounds o’er silence now prevail,

Save of the dying wave below,

Or sailor’s song borne on the gale,

Or oar at distance striking slow.

So sweet! so tranquil! may my ev’ning ray

Set to this world Ñ and rise in future day!

Adeline quitted the heights, and followed a narrow path that wound to the beach below: her mind was now particularly sensible to fine impressions, and the sweet notes of the nightingale amid the stillness of the woods again awakened her enthusiasm.

TO THE NIGHTINGALE.

Child of the melancholy song!

O yet that tender strain prolong!

Her lengthen’d shade,